


out of turn and out of tune

by orphan_account



Category: The Book of Mormon - Ambiguous Fandom, The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Denial of Feelings, Falling In Love, Gratuitous Use of Hyphens, Internalized Homophobia, Just Hide Your Feelings, M/M, Praise Kink, Slightly - Freeform, There's A Tag For That, This Is STUPID, oof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 06:47:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13712175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I don’t- I’m not gay or anything,” says Kevin. And that makes Connor mad- he can explicitly remember the other saying the words “gay thoughts” the night before. He stabs his shovel in the dirt next to him. It makes a cracking noise when it slams into the barren and arid earth.Connor’s livid. Angry. Honestly, openly furious, and he doesn’t care how much he’s—probably—overreacting as he bites, “Bullshit.” He likes swearing, he decides. “Bullshit, you kissed me. You made out with me, and now-”Kevin looks like he’s teetering on the edge of something, a vase leaning on the side of a table, wobbly, about to break, so Connor curbs his tone. Just to make him happy. He doesn’t want him to cry, as enraged as he is. “Look, just because it’s so hard for you doesn’t mean you get to take it out on me.”It's harsh, and Connor knows it. He knows it because Kevin gets up, tosses his gardening gloves on the ground limply, and walks oh-so-calmly off to- Connor doesn’t look at him long enough to see.The shower he takes that night is long and cold.





	out of turn and out of tune

**Author's Note:**

> on this episode of Vert Has Bad Ideas;
> 
> i decided to try and write smut. oops.  
> so this happened?? i'm just gonna leave this here bye thanks

He wasn’t even hiding it anymore. Turning it off. No, he had agreed not too, but  _somehow_ , Kevin still acted self-assured and cocky and ignorant and ever so  _Elder Price_ around him, not open or honest, always watching his words and his body language. Always monitoring what he said and he did, never really letting go, and Connor couldn’t stand it.

Connor would, could, admit it at this point. He was in love; hopelessly, sadly, ever-so-honestly, with the stoic Elder Price, Mormon Poster Boy turned heretic. He was enamoured, preoccupied, consumed by the simple want to be _close_ to the other. He wanted some sort of solidarity with him. A foothold. A nook, a grip, an honest piece of Kevin to be with, to know, to have to himself.

The Hell dreams both got worse and better once he started admitting it- he said it in his head, pushing old prayers and  _off-off-off_  aside with  _I am in love with Kevin Price_ , rolling the words around and twisting them, seeing how they felt. Connor said it to himself after meals and when he woke up, walking outside, and going to sleep. And so the better-and-worse dreams began. He didn’t want to punish himself anymore, but he did, every night. Lights off. Sheets tight over his shoulders, he entered Hell.

When Connor first acknowledged it, he dreamt of a bed, a real one, with real sheets and real blankets, a real mattress. And Kevin. Beneath him, real, real, real, debauched and whining and looking so blatantly wrecked that when Connor woke up he was sticky and gross- he threw his sheets and undergarments in the single, rickety washing machine they had, watching it go in lazy, sputtering circles in the moonlight. The clock blinked a red, mocking,  _1:23 am_  at him.

He had been doing a lot of laundry over the past few months.  _This stupid, beautiful_ _boy,_ Connor thinks.

 

* * *

 

 

Kevin has, much to the district leader’s delight, started to open up around him. Started to relax. His tie loosened, just a little bit, his laugh louder, just a little bit.

At dinner one night Arnold asks what the average penis size is. Innocently. Of course he does, it’s the most Arnold question there is, and so Elder Church remarks in a very Arnold way; “Five and a half inches.” Church then pauses, smirking at the other, “however, for people who ask, it's three and a half.”

The table is silent for a moment- Connor doesn’t know if he should cough politely and dismiss them or laugh. Kevin answers for him.

He  _laughs_ \- openly, honestly, snorting and giggling, head back and chest heaving. And Connor, seeing his face so lit up and so very  _Kevin,_ not Elder Price for once, makes him feel a little warm inside. So he laughs too- and soon the whole of them join, nearly a dozen grown men howling at a dick joke.

That night Connor thinks of Kevin’s laugh, and he sees it in his dreams, but the sheets are still dirty when he wakes up.

 

* * *

 

 

It happens again, too. They’re in the garden planting something resembling violets, wrist deep in sun-baked dirt. It’s just them, and Connor wants to talk, to say something. His mouth itches a little bit, like he has words stuck there. He wants to say them but can’t find phrasing right now. He turns back to the flowers.

“My parents and I used to garden,” Kevin-  _Elder Price_  says, offhandedly. He almost looks like he doesn’t mean to, but Connor wants, needs him to open up.

“Oh?” Connor prompts, trying to elicit more conversation.

Kevin looks nearly puzzled for a moment. “Yeah.” He sits back on his heels, letting the beat-up shovel rest at his side. “Jack and I and Mom and Dad.” Then he looks at Connor expectantly. Waiting.

There’s nothing Connor’s own family did that was special. He was so  _normal_ , like his family had to dull themselves down just to make up for his  _differences_. Like they had to blend in so no one would see what was  _wrong_. Nothing, he knows that now, but it’s not like Kevin would get it. “We had…” he starts, and then a memory hits him, soft smells wafting up a flight of carpeted stairs. “My mom baked, sometimes, for Church.”

“Mine did too.”

And so they talk- boring as family is, it is something they have, a foothold. Conversation is easy, and at noon, when the sun is so hot that Connor can feel the little individual drops of sweat on his skin, he stands up and says he’s going inside.

Kevin pauses. Opens his mouth like he’s about to say something. He doesn’t, just gives a noncommittal hum in response, and goes back to his flowers.

If Connor had turned back around, he would have seen Kevin’s eyes following him as he went.

 

* * *

 

A week later is when he finds another foothold. He has a bad, bad dream that night, pretty red rope around Kevin’s wrists. His skin flushed and his eyes wide. Connor is waiting for the washing machine to clean the shame from his bedding when he sees Kevin wander in. His eyes are bleary and his skin is red, and he knows the look that the other has all too well(he’s looked in the mirror at least once after one of his bad-good-dreams). He bites his tongue.

Kevin has his sheets in his arms too, gathered up and draped across his moonlit skin, and they cast pretty speckled shadows on the dusty wooden floor. When they make eye contact the younger makes a noise like a wounded animal, high-pitched and a little scared, because he sees the way that Connor’s looking at him, the knowing way that he smirks.

“Cold water.”

“What?” Kevin says, puzzled and shameful.

“Cold water, Elder Price.” Connor says it with conviction, and he winces a little internally when he sees the expression contorting Kevin’s features. So he steps closer, softens his face, and repeats it. “Cold water can help get it out. I’ll put your sheets in the machine when I’m done, you should get some sleep.”

“No, Elder McKinle-”

“Connor,” he corrects, sick of the formality.

“C-” Kevin stumbles on the first syllable a little, but he’s happy with the name, with the intimacy. It’s comforting. Safe. “Connor. No, please, you don’t want to…”

Connor raises an eyebrow.

“It’s gross.” Kevin settles on.

 _Oh God, it’s almost cute_ , Connor thinks,  _how embarrassed he is._

But then he also realizes that he wouldn’t want Kevin to know he’s been dreaming about metaphorically wrecking him for the last six months. So he changed his opinion, and says, “Okay. Okay, I won’t, but I can… help. Talk to me.”

Kevin says nothing- but he puts the sheets on the top of the dryer. Slowly. And then he leans closer. “I’m fine.”

It’s a lie, and the older knows it. He knows that he’s just scared, but the clipped tone still hurts. He puts a hand on the other’s shoulder nonetheless, offering, wanting, needing to have Kevin feel calm. Feel safe. Connor waits, then. “Elder, as your district leader, I care about your health and wellbeing. Physical and mental.”

“Just call me Kevin.” Is the reply, cornered, and nothing else.

It feels like a small victory, and so Connor takes a breath in and rephrases. “Okay, Kevin, sweetie, please just talk to me. I only want to help.”

That seems to get somewhere, break some barrier. So Kevin un-tenses a little, and begins to talk, openly, honestly. “I’ve been having dreams. Sexual dreams, and gay thoughts, and we weren’t turning it off anymore so I didn’t but now I just-”

“No, no, Kev, that’s normal, that’s fine, you don’t have to worry.” Kevin had been starting to ramble, the words blurring and a little dizzy-sounding. Connor squeezes his shoulder and continues. “We’re not turning it off, but yeah, it can be hard. Why do you think I’m here washing my sheets, hmm?”

That baffles the brunette for a moment. “Oh,” he says in response. He repeats it. “Oh.”

Suddenly there’s a shift- Kevin’s leaning in with almost-fear-almost-determination, and he puts a hand in Connor’s hair, and very, very lightly kisses him.

 _Well, okay, okay_ , is all Connor can think, and his mantra comes back to him. He’s in love, and the person he’s in love with is kissing him, and _then_ it clicks.

He starts to kiss back, and Kevin melts into his touch and fully gives control to him. Connor’s never kissed anyone, and neither has Kevin. It’s messy. Imperfect. But when Connor gives an experimental lick into the younger’s mouth Kevin  _moans_ , and that’s all he needs. He keeps going, pressing a little farther, holding the other a little tighter, and he can feel the blood in his ears pounding. Rushing and rushing and rushing.

One hand is gripping Kevin’s lower back, the other at his neck, at the base of his hair, and he realizes that when he pulls just there, the brunette jolts in his grip. Electric and awakening.

Then he remembers to breathe, and pulls away, inhaling sharply like he’s just been drowning. And he supposes he has. “Kevin Price,” he says, tone wispy and thin, open and honest.

“Shit-” and then Kevin looks even more guilty, “I mean, sorry, sorry, I should’ve-”

And Connor almost laughs at that, at his apology, but instead, he pulls him into a tight hug and tells him how perfect that was.

Kevin still practically bolts back to his room without a word, leaving his sheets there for Connor to do.

The other doesn’t really mind, and he folds them, as well, and leaves them outside of Kevin’s door before he finally retreats into slumber.

 

* * *

 

Connor (sadly) kind of expects Kevin to ignore him the next day, but it still stings when he brushes past him with no greeting before breakfast. Nothing. Not a word. And yeah, Connor’s mad—he has the right to be—because it’s just so  _Elder Price_  to just make out with someone then avoid it.

Realistically, Connor knows he probably just doesn’t want to deal with those emotions, but he’s in the mood for realism. He wants Kevin in his grip again, pliant under his fingers, and he wants to talk to him and be close to him, dammit. In short, he doubts he’s helping his own situation. Doesn’t matter. He’d fix it. He fixed everything, eventually.

“Kevin,” he tries, after breakfast, “talk to me.”

Nothing.

“I’m sorry,” he says, before lunch.

No response.

“Please,” he adds, when they’re weeding their violets in the Ugandan evening, and Kevin sighs.

“I don’t- I’m not gay or anything,” says Kevin. And that makes Connor mad- he can explicitly remember the other saying the words “gay thoughts” the night before. He stabs his shovel in the dirt next to him. It makes a cracking noise when it slams into the barren and arid earth.

Connor’s livid. Angry. Honestly, openly furious, and he doesn’t care how much he’s—probably—overreacting as he bites, “Bullshit.” He likes swearing, he decides. “Bullshit, you _kissed_ me. You  _made out_  with me, and now-”

Kevin looks like he’s teetering on the edge of something, a vase leaning on the side of a table, wobbly, about to break, so Connor curbs his tone. Just to make him happy. He doesn’t want him to cry, as enraged as he is. “Kev, honey, sweetie, please, just, you can’t say that if you engaged in homosexual activity and admitted to gay thoughts. You know that we're- we’re not turning it off anymore, and just because it’s so hard for you doesn’t  _mean you get to take it out on me_.”

The last part’s harsh, and Connor knows it. He knows it because Kevin gets up (stiffly, and he’s so, so, quiet) tosses his gardening gloves on the ground limply, and walks oh-so-calmly off to- Connor doesn’t look at him long enough to see.

He turns to the flowers in front of him and rips one out. Its stem is kinked at an angle, and he tears it in half and leaves it there, broken and dying, just to rot.

The shower he takes that night is long and cold.

 

* * *

 

They hardly speak for several days. Connor’s dreams are worse, more mostly-bad than before, more rough and angry, and they leave him even more unhappy than previously. He tries to ignore Kevin, to pretend he’s not in love, to lie, to make the truth up. And God, it hurts. It does- plainly, simply. It stings and it punches him in the gut when Kevin looks at him. His love, against him.

He’s resolved to his fate, almost (not really) and he’s in his usual spot. Lounging near the washing machine in the dark, and then he hears something. Connor’s first thought is to kick the stupid appliance, thinking it’s making another irritating noise, and then he recognizes it.

Sobbing. From Kevin and Arnold’s room.

Sniffling, gut-wrenching muffled crying, and he can tell it’s Kevin. He walks to the door without a thought, because Arnold should be comforting him, he’s not supposed to do this, this isn’t his job-

Kevin says nothing when Connor closes the door. He sits on the bed next to the other Elder, and looks at the empty place where Arnold usually is.

“Nabalungi’s.” It’s all Kevin says, and his voice is pulled taut like a rubber band about to snap. “I’m sorry for- for what I said.”

The brunette is hunched over his knees on the side of the bed, and his cheeks are pale and his eyes glassy. There’s an envelope on the floorboards, torn open, but the letter is missing. It’s his parents, Connor knows, immediately, and rubs slow, small circle on the other’s back.

“Shh, Kev, sweetie, don’t apologize. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that,” Connor says, almost like an exhale, and it feels almost nice to blame himself.

Kevin looks at him with something that resembles confusion. “No. No, I kissed you, I wanted that. I’m gay, and I really, really like you.” He reaches for Connor’s other hand.

Connor can feel his eyes light up and his cheeks redden; he’s happy, oh God, he’s happy, but there’s an envelope on the floor from Mr. & Mrs. Price, and Kevin still has tears in his eyes. “I love you,” he decides, “and I have for a while. But you… are you okay?”

There’s no response at first, and Kevin starts to say that he’s fine, but then halts. Pauses the words, and chooses to answer, openly and honestly. “They say I can’t come home.” Then he slips into Connor’s lap, head pressed against his thigh, and lets out a shaky breath.

Finger settle idly in Kevin’s hair, and Connor strokes the oaky strands as the responds. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know if I- If I need them right now.” Kevin looks a little more determined, and pushes himself onto his palms, and then, kisses Connor.

It’s different. More driven, Connor thinks, and soon he has Kevin underneath him, his hands gripping hard like he’ll float away if he lets go. His nails dig in, but Connor says nothing because he kind of likes the feeling.

Kevin’s tongue is tentative when he reaches out to the other’s mouth, but he breathes out shakily in approval as Connor becomes more focused. It’s like he’s on another frequency now, a little higher, and his head feels soft and almost clouded. It’s nice.

Connor does pull back, and the other whines (whines!) at the loss. “Wait.” His hands are braced at Kevin’s sides, one thigh on each side of the his hips. He can feel Kevin becoming aroused, and yeah, he is too, but Kevin. Kevin Price, incredible, sweet. He doesn’t want to push him. He doesn’t want to take advantage of him just because he’s sad. “How much- how far do you want to go?”

“I want you…,” and then he looks away, a little shameful. “I don’t really know if, uh, I want to, and we don’t have… stuff, but, could you maybe just use your fingers? Or- something?” Kevin really doesn’t have much of an idea, but Arnold told him some  _interesting details_ about some Star Trek fanfiction he’d read—that he really didn’t need to know—but he’d done this particular activity in a dream, and it seemed safe.

Connor’s definitely not opposed to the idea. No, not at all. It makes a little jolt go up his spine, hot and prickling like he’d stepped in a bath too hot or brushed a plug with his finger, and he doesn’t mind the sudden feeling. “Okay. Okay, honey, are you sure?”

Kevin nods.

“I need you to say it, please,” Connor finds himself saying. Like someone else put the words there, a little new.

Kevin then exhales, and says, “I want you to- to finger me.”

“Talk to me, the whole time, okay, Kev?”

“You know. I kinda like it when you call me- pet names.”

Surprising. Not unwelcome. Just different; Connor’s happy to indulge, and yeah, it’s kinda sweet. He starts by pulling off his own plain t-shirt, and Kevin mimics him—no one wears temple garments anymore. “Sweetie, I’m going to take your pants off, okay?”

When Kevin voices his approval Connor makes sure to take his time- to be sweet and to tease and to take his time to  _love_ , because he finally gets this, and the look Kevin is giving him makes him feel warm and a little electric inside, a switch turned on, not off.

They’re both down to only their boxers, and Connor takes a moment to just enjoy the view of the  _Elder_   _Price_  beneath him like this. God, he’s beautiful. His hands are warm against his skin and he can feel his breath, in out, in out, and the way he tenses when Connor puts an experimental hand over the arousal between his thighs- he likes the way Kevin reacts there, the way his breath speeds up a little and the way he shifts beneath his touch.

“Can I…?” Connor questions, his fingertips lingering at the other’s waistband.

Kevin affirms, “Yeah, yeah, please.”

Carefully, slowly, sweetly, he pulled the other’s boxers to just below his knees, taking in the sight of his cock, red and flushed, against his stomach. Connor feels a little lost at the moment. Wandering, when he puts a hand, comforting, just above Kevin’s hip. He presses a little bit, and Kevin arches towards him with a needy breath.

Connor realizes that it’s a good idea to spit in his hand first, and then he wraps it, soft and anxious, around Kevin’s cock- very light at first, just enough to get a pretty, high-strung moan from the other. He moves his hand up, down, and then just his thumb. He’s getting hard himself, only because of the sounds and the jolts his partner’s making, and he hasn’t done anything much just yet. “You’re doing so well, sweetheart, so responsive for me.”

He throws the words out on a limb, but God, Kevin reacts, with a low-pitched animalistic noise somewhere between a whine and a moan. Connor can tell that the other’s getting worked up from just this. He should probably stop before he comes in his boxers, or Kevin comes from his words and his hand alone.

“Kev, love, do you have Vaseline or something? We can do this without but it might make it nicer.”

Kevin struggles to get his words out whole, like the touch put his brain in a blender and mixed it all up, but he says, “Basket, under the bed.”

Of course, of course Kevin has a tub of it. (“My lips get chapped!” he protests). Connor dips two fingers in the silken, clear gel, and looks at the other for consent, again, giving him a chance to pull away. “You sure you want this?”

A nod.

“Okay. Alright.” And Connor breathes, in and out, to steady himself, and he presses a kiss to Kevin’s chest, and then another to his lips, and one just south of his hip bone. “I’m going to hold your hips up, yeah?”

Another nod, a little more hurried. Slipping a hand just above the younger’s tailbone, Connor circled the ring of muscle and pressed another soft, soft kiss to Kevin’s thigh, and eased his finger in- slowly, slowly, and watched as Kevin whimpered at the new feeling. And Connor, Connor had never felt like this in his life. “You’re so, so good, honey, is this alright?”

“Please. I- yes, thank you, I-” Kevin stammers, choking on his own words. The feeling’s so different. So unusual, but it’s Connor, and that makes it okay because it’s slow and soft and safe. “Can I pl- have another one?”

“Of course, Kev, sweetie, whatever you need.” And Connor does give him a second finger, just as slow, and the way Kevin tightens and shudders as he does so make Connor painfully, painfully aware of how hard he is.

Connor strokes upwards and hit _something;_ that bundle of nerves, and Kevin jolts, twitches. Then he lets out a high-pitched whine and pulls the other closer to him by the back of his neck, kissing him quickly. Whispers ‘again’, over and over and over. So Connor indulges, and watches as Kevin, blatantly wrecked below him, comes in sticky white, a low noise of approval in his throat. “God, honey, that was incredible. You’re just breathtaking.”

“Wait,” says Kevin, still boneless, “you need me to…” He’s gesturing to the obvious strain of his cock against his boxers, and out of pure, open, kindness, Connor tells him not to worry and that he’ll do it. Ever the fighter, Kevin insists; “I want to.”

It doesn’t take Connor long to come over Kevin’s hand, with a moan of his name, and he reluctantly trudges to the bathroom. Prays none of the other Elders see him like this. Wrecked. In love.

Connor cleans up the other with a washcloth and when they’re both sleepy, sated and curled up in Kevin’s single bed, he realizes. “We just did that.”

“I think so,” is the reply, and he scoots a little closer.

“You know,” Connor says, a few moments later, arm wrapped tight around the other, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Kevin replies, honestly, openly.

**Author's Note:**

> title; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETznif_av4
> 
> that dick joke is unashamedly stolen from bo burnham's 'words words words' go check him out
> 
> -
> 
> mcpriceley is mcniceley


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